This thesis consists of three empirical studies on the effects of exposure to heavy metal pollution in early childhood on a broad set of individual outcomes. The first study analyses how accumulated exposure to metal pollution during childhood affects long-run outcomes. Exploiting policy-driven reductions in metal pollution in Sweden, it shows that accumulated exposure to metals (including cadmium

BACKGROUND: The aim was to examine if self reported chronic regional pain (CRP) and chronic widespread pain (CWP) predicted inpatient care due to serious medical conditions such as cerebrovascular diseases, ischemic heart diseases, neoplasms and infectious diseases in a general population cohort over a ten year follow-up period.METHODS: A ten-year follow up of a cohort from the general adult popul

BACKGROUND: Accumulation of myocardial triglycerides (MTG) is associated with impaired left ventricular (LV) remodelling and function in obese and diabetic subjects. The role of MTG accumulation in development of heart failure in this group of patients is unknown. Short-term studies suggest that diets that lead to weight loss could mobilize MTG, with a favourable effect on cardiac remodelling. In

Sweden’s “establishment reform” was introduced in 2010 with the ambition to increase the labour market participation of newly arrived migrants. It was in line with other labour market policies of the centre-right Alliance government, elected in 2006, which aimed to increase work incentives particularly for groups seen as “vulnerable” in, or excluded from, the labour market.By considering the histo

BACKGROUND: Longstanding musculoskeletal pain is common in the general population and associated with frequent use of health care. Plain radiography is a common diagnostic approach in these patients despite knowledge that the use in the investigation of musculoskeletal pain is associated with low diagnostic yield, substantial costs and high radiation exposure. The aim of this study was to assess t

Previous research suggests that there is an inverted U-shape curve for energy intensity in the long-run for Western Europewith a peak in the early 20th century. This paper tests the hypothesis that the increase of German and British energy intensity was an effect from the concentration of heavy industrial production to these countries, although the consumption of a significant share of these goods

Valentinus av Alexandria var en teolog och predikant vars verksamhet under det andra århundradet fick stort genomslag. Valentinianernas evangelium – den världsbild och teologi som kan knytas till Valentinus och hans efterföljare – var intimt förknippat med fenomenet gnosticism. Men vad är egentligen gnosticism och hur hänger den ihop med kristendom? Den här boken är en introduktion till antik gnos

Employing fault tolerance often introduces a time overhead, which may cause a deadline violation in real-time systems (RTS). Therefore, for RTS it is important to optimize the fault tolerance techniques such that the probability to meet the deadlines, i.e. The Level of Confidence (LoC), is maximized. Previous studies have focused on evaluating the LoC for equidistant checkpointing. However, no stu

The language of newspapers in the public sphere has a crucial impact on how the public perceives and participates in society. It can serve to encourage or counteract active and informed citizens; in fact, it is a crucial element in democratisation processes. The purposes of the present study are to elucidate what means of persuasion are used to support theses on politics in newspaper discours

Objective To examine trends in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as an underlying cause of death (UCD) in 31 countries across the globe during 1987-2011. Methods Data on mortality and population were collected from the World Health Organization mortality database and the United Nations. Age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR) were calculated by means of direct standardization. We applied joinpoint regress